The blizzard was fierce. Roads were buried—impossible to walk or drive. The front door wouldn’t budge, sealed shut by three feet of snow, and digging out wasn’t an option. The city wasn’t built for this kind of winter, and the houses weren’t designed to withstand nature’s fury. A proper disaster, no joke about it.
And on this very night, Emily’s father was dying.
A stroke. No ambulance, no rescue services to call—just her, a young neurologist, and the scant medical supplies she kept at home.
Her dad had collapsed in the kitchen while filling the kettle. Emily hadn’t seen it happen, but diagnosing a stroke was first-year med student stuff. For her, recognising the apoplexy was easy—without hospital care, he wouldn’t last till morning.
She phoned everyone she could think of, even the police. The same answer each time: “Your call has been logged. Emergency services will attend as soon as possible.”
No one was coming. That much was clear. But she’d never forgive herself if she didn’t try everything. She dragged her father to bed with great effort; he just groaned, completely paralysed. No anticoagulants allowed. Aspirin first, then intravenous prednisolone for brain swelling. Blood pressure low, so no bisoprolol.
All she could do was wait. Emily moved like an automaton—by the book, methodical. No emotions, just a hollow numbness inside.
Then, as if things weren’t bad enough, the power cut out. The flat plunged into darkness, the air thick like syrup, every sound sharp and jarring. Her father wheezed but evenly—no moans, at least. Emily, on the other hand, barely seemed to breathe at all.
“Morning can’t come soon enough,” she murmured, just to hear her own voice—to prove she was still alive.
Right then, the loudest knock she’d ever heard thundered at the door.
Emily both flinched and brightened. Help had arrived—who else would knock in this weather? She scrambled towards the sound, banging into every obstacle in her path, fumbled with the lock, and yanked the door open—only to be blinded by torchlight.
“Alright?” asked a horribly familiar voice from behind the glare.
It was just her neighbour. A wretched bloke named Derek, forever stuck in adolescent idiocy. She couldn’t stand him. Forty but behaved like a fifteen-year-old with no supervision—grew his hair wild for months, then shaved it into a green-dyed mohawk, picked fights with bobbies, and somehow never held a job, yet still scraped by.
For her, with years spent bent over anatomy textbooks, his very existence felt like an insult. Men like him had no place in decent society.
She tried slamming the door, but Derek wedged his foot in—pure cheek, verging on criminal.
“Everything alright?” he asked.
“Move your foot,” she snapped.
She was afraid of him. Every interaction left her recoiling.
“Right.” He actually withdrew his foot and lowered the torch. “Just thought you might need a hand.”
“Not from you.”
“So you *do* need help,” Derek said, infuriatingly perceptive. “Got any water?”
“For God’s sake, there’s a tap! Or the kettle!” She tried shutting the door again.
Insufferable man. This time, Derek didn’t block it—just left a five-litre water bottle on the threshold before sloping off to his flat next door. The same flat with paper-thin walls that did nothing to muffle his drunken rants or awful attempts at harmonica.
“Absolute reprobate,” Emily muttered.
Then it hit her. She rushed to the kitchen—the taps hissed dry. The five-litre bottle sat untouched on the doorstep, mocking her.
Later, Derek returned with a torch and spare batteries—something she, a *doctor*, hadn’t even considered. She should’ve been the one saving the neighbourhood.
“I want to tell you to sod off,” she admitted when he handed her the torch.
“Go on, then,” Derek shrugged. “Just tell me—how’s your dad?”
“What’s it to you?”
“Just asked. How is he?”
“Stroke,” she spat. “Needs an ambulance—”
Derek spun on his battered trainers and vanished. Emily was alone again—with her dying father, a five-litre water jug, and a torch.
“He’s awful, Dad. Proper scoundrel. The sort you’d have arrested back in your day…”
The torch proved a godsend. She checked his blood pressure, dug out a glucose drip, and set it up. Tried boiling the kettle—nope. Even the gas had given up.
She wanted to cry. A qualified neurologist, powerless to save the one person who mattered—all because of snow? What was the point of years studying if she couldn’t even do this? She’d never felt so useless.
Then Derek barged in again.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?” He was bundled in Arctic-grade gear, like an old polar explorer, lugging a duffel stuffed with woollen socks and fleeces.
“I don’t trust you, but fine—come in,” she relented.
“Actually, you’re the one invited *out*,” Derek said, stepping inside. “Your dad’s coming with us. You’ll monitor him—you’re the doctor. I can walk in deep snow. And he’s a fighter. Between the three of us, we’ll manage.”
He unzipped the duffel, pulling out a heavy-duty sleeping bag.
“Bundle him in here… Arthur, was it?” Derek faltered, suddenly sheepish. “Eh—your dad. Got a neck brace?”
“Yes. I’ll fit it,” she said briskly, surprised at how easily she slipped into work mode, just like with emergency cases at the hospital.
“Brace first, then the bag,” Derek ordered.
She wasn’t used to taking orders—usually, *she* was the one in charge. But right now, she didn’t need logic. She needed help, hope, and someone to share the burden. And the last person she’d ever want aid from had just offered all three.
“What exactly are we managing?” she asked, securing the brace.
“Nearest A&E’s a mile off,” Derek said. “If the mountain won’t come to Mohammed…”
“We’re *walking*? Through *this*?”
“Yeah. Bet they don’t teach *that* in med school. I can’t stick a needle in a vein, but I can haul arse through snow. Now—how’s his spine?”
“His *what*?”
“Arthur. Your dad. Any disc issues?”
“L5-S1 herniation, mild. He’s on muscle relaxants,” she recited automatically.
“Can I carry him two flights, or d’you need a stretcher?”
“Stretcher. Definitely.”
“Wait here,” Derek said, vanishing again into the dark hallway.
Metallic clangs echoed below, followed by muffled voices. Then a shout:
“Piss off, you lot! And Ilya—show your face round here again, I’ll break your nose!” Classic Derek.
Emily sighed. This wouldn’t work.
More clattering. Mumbled negotiations. Footsteps.
“Quietly now—no smashing anything,” Derek announced, reappearing with a procession behind him.
In the dark, it took Emily a moment to recognise the couple from downstairs—hardly her favourite people. No car, always skint. The kind she privately labelled “embarrassments.” Yet here they were, carrying a stretcher cobbled from old plumbing pipes and a rain poncho. Sturdy enough.
They bundled her father into the sleeping bag, loaded him onto the stretcher. Derek took one end; the neighbours, the other.
“You hold the drip,” Derek ordered.
She didn’t argue. For the first time in hours, she felt light—almost relieved. Someone else was making decisions. She just clutched the IV bag while they carried him.
Then chaos. Derek hauled the sleeping bag on a plastic sled like a shaggy husky. Emily focused on keeping up and shielding the glucose bottle from freezing. She’d never walked on snow with makeshift skis before—so-called “hunting skis” Derek had somehow scrounged up.
Derek himself ploughed ahead on snowshoes like tennis rackets, never faltering or losing direction.
“Got a proper job too, y’know,” he said suddenly. “Geologist. Most of us are desk jockeys now. But I’m old-school. Fieldwork suits me.”
“So why the drinking? No better way to live?”
He just shrugged, lapsing into silence until they reached the dim glow of A&E. Inside, amid the hum of diesel generators, Emily tried reclaiming control—barking orders at paramedics, demanding scans, access to the CT machine. Derek hovered, bear-like and calm, gently reining her in.
Only when her father was wheeled away, the empty glucose bottle finally pried from her grip, did the tension ease.
She collapsed onto a sticky hospital bench,Emily drifted off to sleep there, under the hum of hospital lights, while Derek stayed by her side—quiet, watchful, as if guarding something far more fragile than just her weary heart.
